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FROM THE VICE CHAIR Molly Marcusse, Assistant Archivist for Reference, American Heritage Center Welcome to 2016! Looking back at 2015, it was an eventful and exciting year for me, but within the world of description, I was most excited about the launch of the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) prototype history research tool. The SNAC prototype tool contains descriptive data culled from a huge number of sources, including EAD finding aids, catalog records and authority records, that has been reformed in the prototype tool to follow the Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) international standard. I like to think of EAC-CPF records as being the opposite of EAD finding aids. We build EAD around a specific collection or materials and include information about the records creator. In contrast, EAC-CPF records are focused on the records creator, with information about relevant collections or informational sources being included. The launch of the SNAC prototype history research tool to the public represents a new way for researchers to discover information across a wide array of archives and other information institutions. If you haven’t yet had a chance to explore this new tool, I highly recommend exploring it at http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/snac/search. Have you been working on a description project that you want to share? If so, the SAA Description Section wants to hear about it. As in years past, the 2016 Description Expo will highlight description projects that facilitate discovery and access, represent an innovative way to share hidden collections, or re-use description in a new way. Entries will be accepted through July 31, 2016. Projects will be displayed on the Description Section website beginning in August 2016. If you have a project that you’d like to share, please send a project description (300 words or less) along with a link to the project to me at, [email protected]. IN THIS ISSUE From the Vice Chair ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 Feature Article: New A & D Certificate Program to Premiere in 2016 ............................................................. 2 News & Notes ................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Calls for Speakers, Posters, & Reviewers ................................................................................................................... 6 Upcoming Conferences & Workshops ...................................................................................................................10 Announcements ............................................................................................................................................................11

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Page 1: FROM THE VICE CHAIR · Welcome to 2016! Looking back at 2015, it was an eventful and exciting year for me, but within the world of description, I was most excited about the launch

FROM THE VICE CHAIR Molly Marcusse, Assistant Archivist for Reference, American Heritage Center

Welcome to 2016! Looking back at 2015, it was an eventful and exciting year for me, but within the world of description, I was most excited about the launch of the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) prototype history research tool. The SNAC prototype tool contains descriptive data culled from a huge number of sources, including EAD finding aids, catalog records and authority records, that has been reformed in the prototype tool to follow the Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) international standard. I like to think of EAC-CPF records as being the opposite of EAD finding aids. We build EAD around a specific collection or materials and include information about the records creator. In contrast, EAC-CPF records are focused on the records creator, with information about relevant collections or informational sources being included. The launch of the SNAC prototype history research tool to the public represents a new way for researchers to discover information across a wide array of archives and other information institutions. If you haven’t yet had a chance to explore this new tool, I highly recommend exploring it at http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/snac/search.

Have you been working on a description project that you want to share? If so, the SAA Description Section wants to hear about it. As in years past, the 2016 Description Expo will highlight description projects that facilitate discovery and access, represent an innovative way to share hidden collections, or re-use description in a new way. Entries will be accepted through July 31, 2016. Projects will be displayed on the Description Section website beginning in August 2016. If you have a project that you’d like to share, please send a project description (300 words or less) along with a link to the project to me at, [email protected].

IN THIS ISSUE

From the Vice Chair ...................................................................................................................................................... 1

Feature Article: New A & D Certificate Program to Premiere in 2016 ............................................................. 2

News & Notes ................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Calls for Speakers, Posters, & Reviewers ................................................................................................................... 6

Upcoming Conferences & Workshops ...................................................................................................................10

Announcements ............................................................................................................................................................11

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New A&D Certificate Program to Premiere in 2016 Solveig De Sutter, Director of Education, Society of American Archivists Jennifer Pelose, Education Committee Chair, Society of American Archivists

The SAA Education Committee is developing an Archival Arrangement and Description Certificate Program—A&D for short—to provide a way for archivists to demonstrate lifelong learning throughout their careers and to keep their skills and knowledge up to date to ensure that they continue to work effectively.

This program, which will debut in 2016, "should not be considered a substitute for graduate education, but ideally, a supplement that builds upon a foundation already laid by LIS programs, and a path towards specialization. ‘Continuing education’ aims to close the gap in the knowledge base of LIS practitioners that cannot be filled satisfactorily by formal education programs or on-the-job training alone."1

The A&D track will allow archivists to immerse themselves in a single topic, especially at a time when the field is changing so quickly. This approach provides archivists with extended descriptive training to expand the skill set they gained in graduate school, and it can also facilitate career shifts within the archival field (e.g., moving from public services to processing/cataloging).

Prospective students are able to assess their needs against the general goals of four different tiers. Fundamentals

• Fundamentals of Arrangement and Description (2-day) [Required] • Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) [Required] • MARC for Archival Description (1-day) • Encoded Archival Description - EAD 3 (2-day) • Metadata Overview for Archivists webinar (A&D and DAS) • Ethics for Archivists (available in fall 2016) (1-day) • Forming Names According to RDA—Part I webinar • Appraisal webinar (available spring 2016) • Rights and Confidentiality webinar (available mid 2016)

Tactical and Strategic

• Arrangement and Description of Electronic Records Parts I & II (A&D & DAS) • Architectural Records: Managing Design & Construction Records (2-day)

1 Karen F. Gracy, Jean Ann Croft, “Quo Vadis, Preservation Education? A Study of Current Trends and Future Needs in Continuing

Education Programs,” ALCTS 51:2 (2007), http://journals.ala.org/lrts/article/view/5290/6446.

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• Fundamentals of Project Management for Archivists (1-day) • Photographs: Archival Principles & Practices (available late 2016) (2-day) • Copyright Issues in Digital Archives (A&D & DAS) (1-day) • Grant Writing for Arrangement and Description (1-day) • Arrangement and Description for AV Materials (1-day) • Arranging and Describing Ephemera (available late 2016) • Arrangement and Description for Outreach or Visualizing Description (2017) • Essential Coding for Archivists (2017)

Tools and Services

• Style Sheets for EAD—Delivering Your Finding Aids on the Web • Forming Names According to RDA—Part II webinar • Cross Walking Metadata (available late 2016) • How DACS Fits with TEI, METS, MODS, and MARC (available late 2016) • Determining Options For and Selecting Tools webinar (2017)

Transformational

• Financial Management for Archivists (1-day) • Implementing More Product, Less Process (1-day) • SAA Standard: EAC-CPF (1-day) • Authorities and RDF (2017) • Linked Archival Open Data (2017)

The curriculum accounts for horizontal and vertical transfers of knowledge through a structure of tracks and tiers. The tiers of study allow for instruction in the basics that is built on by subsequent courses which address specialized, advanced studies, tactics and tools useful for arrangement and description, management, organization and preservation. Taken as a whole, these courses provide an integrated programmatic framework for archivists at various levels within their institutions whose areas of practice include arrangement and description. Core Competencies of the A&D Curriculum The curriculum is designed to support the awarding of Arrangement and Description Certificate of Completion to successful students (i.e., those who pass a course-specific exam in each of the following areas of core competencies):

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1. Arrangement: Understand the process of organizing materials with respect to their provenance and original order to protect their context and facilitate access.

2. Description: Analyze and describe details about the attributes of a record or collection of records to facilitate identification, management, and understanding of the work.

3. Descriptive Standards: Apply rules and practices that codify the content of information used to represent archival materials in discovery tools according to published structural guidelines.

4. Management: Demonstrate ability to manage physical and intellectual control over archival materials.

5. Discovery: Create tools to facilitate access and disseminate descriptive records of archival materials.

6. Ethics: Convey transparency of actions taken during arrangement and description and respect privacy, confidentiality, and cultural sensitivity of archival materials.

7. Risk Management: Analyze threats and implement measures to minimize ethical and institutional risks.

Who Should Take A&D Courses? Anyone can take A&D courses! For instance:

• SAA members and other archivists, comprising managers, administrators, and the other professionals who work with records or other archival materials in large or small organizations with staff or by themselves.

• Librarians, legal staff, and records managers who have responsibility for records or other archival materials.

• Employers who want to ensure that their staff has the knowledge and training to successfully arrange and describe institutional records using appropriate descriptive standards; implement appropriate risk management strategies; and manage the overall process fully aware of ethical considerations.

• Members of the Academy of Certified Archivists and regional associations. • Students and SAA student chapters.

How Is a Certificate Earned? Participants working toward a certificate must take and pass two Foundational courses; one course from the available Legal Issues courses; one Tactical and Strategic course; and one course in both the Tools and Services and Transformational tiers.

More knowledgeable students can elect to test out of the Foundational courses.

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The A&D Certificate is valid for five years, and certificate holders can elect to renew the certificate by successfully completing courses and exams from the Foundational (if new), Tactical and Strategic, Tools and Services, and Transformational course tiers. Renewal of the certificate is strongly recommended to stay current with standards, legal issues, best practices, etc.

What about DAS Certificate Holders? SAA’s Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Certificate program includes a track of courses in three of the tiers that address Arrangement & Description. If you’ve taken these DAS courses and passed the exams, they can then be applied to the A&D Certificate.

More to come so stay tuned for more details!

NEWS AND NOTES

DACS Revision Proposal – Request for Feedback (Due: January 29, 2016) Hillel Arnold, Lead Archivist, Rockefeller Archive Center

The Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (TS-DACS) has received a revision proposal to remove reference to a potential "companion website” from the DACS Preface. Change proposal and a comment form.

Community feedback is a critical element to standards review and TS-DACS strongly encourages you to participate by reviewing the change proposal and sending us your feedback. Feedback will be accepted through Friday January 29th, 2016.

***

Description Section Annual Meeting Alexandra Orchard, Technical + Metadata Archivist, Wayne State University, Reuther Library

The Description Section’s 2015 Annual Meeting in Cleveland included with council updates from Rachel Vagts, the announcement of EAD3 from EAD Co-Chair Bill Stockton, and Jackie Dooley’s discussion on two OCLC research efforts. Karin Bredenberg of the Swedish National Archives updated the Section on the Swedish Common Specifications FGS:ER project. Section Survey and election results were presented by outgoing chair Gordon Daines, and the meeting concluded with remarks from the incoming Section Chair Jenny Mitchell. For full details, see the meeting minutes submitted by Section Secretary Katrina Windon.

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Digitizing the Joseph Trumbull Papers Michelle C. Sigiel, Connecticut Historical Society, Intern from Simmons College, GSLIS

This semester I had the opportunity to participate in writing MODS records and arranging electronic files for the Joseph Trumbull Papers, 1753-1791, held at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, Connecticut. This collection of the personal papers and correspondence of lawyer and businessman Joseph Trumbull Jr. (1737-1778), a Commissary-General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, illustrates the struggles of commanders to feed and equip the army during early stages of the Revolution.

This collection is in the process of being made available through a digital preservation platform created by the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA), the largest aggregator and preserver of digital cultural heritage material in the state of Connecticut (ctdigitalarchive.org). It contains four boxes of primarily letters spanning the years prior to when Joseph Trumbull Jr. served in his position until his untimely death due to illness in 1778. A finding aid encoded in EAD down to the file level already exists. Thus, I found myself extracting some information from the finding aid to meet the requirements for file level description, but I also relied heavily on the records in the collection in an effort to improve and revise the descriptive summaries I provided for MODS. This helped me realize how important revision is for description—notions I learned in theory during school, I was able to incorporate into practice during my internship.

***

Update: Rules for Archival Description (RAD) Katrina Windon, Photograph Archivist, University of Nevada, Reno

In October 2015, the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) issued a call for comments from Canadian archivists on the Rules for Archival Description (RAD). These comments, along with feedback gained from other meetings, a roundtable, and comments shared using the #rethinkRAD tag on Twitter, will influence the update and revision that the CCA is currently conducting of the standard. A Meeting of Experts on Archival Description to be held in February 2016 will be the next step in the process of revising RAD, which was last updated in 2008. More information on the Meeting of Experts and its agenda

CALLS FOR SPEAKERS, POSTERS, & REVIEWERS

Connecting Uses, Pushing Limits: An Aeon Symposium (Deadline: January 29) University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan June 15-17, 2016 Olga Virakhovskaya, Lead Archivist for Collections Management

The University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library, Special Collections, and William L. Clements Library are pleased to announce an Aeon Symposium dedicated to Connecting Uses, Pushing Limits among current and prospective institutional users of Aeon. From early adapters

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to newest users, participants will have the opportunity to affirm what's best and challenge the rest. The symposium is made possible through generous support of Atlas Systems. There is no registration fee to take part in 2 ½ days of lessons learned, progress made, new questions formed, and emerging agendas around:

• The learning curve of Aeon • "Aeon intelligence" from collections development to curation • The effect of Aeon on change management • Integration of Aeon and ArchivesSpace • Aeon and the undergraduate • Multiple languages in Aeon

Submit Your Proposal here. The deadline for receiving proposals is January 29, 2016. On-line registration will open February 1, 2016. For any questions, please contact: [email protected]

***

Call for DACS Education Collaborators (Deadline: February 15) Elise Dunham and TS-DACS

The SAA Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (TS-DACS) is seeking volunteer collaborators for one of our exciting initiatives this year: a revision of the SAA DACS one-day workshop. We will be developing a series of short (approx. 5-minute) videos that will introduce foundational concepts covered in the current DACS workshop (e.g., history/development of DACS, definition of archival description). The videos will be made freely available online and the in-person workshop will be focused on practicing principled archival judgment, providing archivists the opportunity to address real-world description challenges in a supportive and collegial environment. We will also expand the discussion topics and in-class exercises for the one-day in-person workshop. A detailed outline of our workshop revision plan is available here. We are calling upon DACS practitioners to contribute to this effort by volunteering to develop one or more components of the instructional material for this new DACS workshop. Materials from previous workshops and support from the TS-DACS education group will be available throughout the entire development process. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out this form where you can specify the video/exercises you are interested in by February 15, 2016. A member of the TS-DACS committee will be in touch with information about next steps in early March. Early professionals seeking to gain experience in instruction and/or DACS are encouraged to volunteer!

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Volunteers who contribute course material to the DACS workshop will be acknowledged for their contributions, and financial resources are available from SAA for support. TS-DACS will provide editorial support and oversight for all content.

If you have any questions about this opportunity or our work on the DACS workshop, please don't hesitate to email Elise Dunham ([email protected]).

*** International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPres) 2016 (Deadline: April 15) Bern, Switzerland October 3-6, 2016

The Swiss National Library is delighted to announce that the 13th International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES) will take place in Bern from October 3 - 6, 2016. iPRES is the longest standing digital preservation conference in the world. This important event brings together key theorists, researchers and practitioners to explore the latest trends, innovations, policies and practices in digital preservation. iPRES2016 will attract participants from leading institutions, projects and initiatives from all around the world.

We invite original contributions that cover research and practices related but not necessarily limited to the following topics:

Preservation strategies and workflows Migration; emulation; preservation planning, acquisition and ingest; preservation action, characterization, and access provision; risk analysis; audit, trust and certification; authenticity, security, and information/data quality

Digital preservation frameworks Digital preservation requirements and implications for the system lifecycle: modeling, design, development, deployment and maintenance; business models, sustainability and economic viability

Infrastructure, systems, and tools Intelligent and secure storage; system architectures and requirements, software and hardware dependencies, distributed and cloud-based implementations; preservation resources; content management, characterization, and processing tools

Domain-specific challenges Preservation of cultural heritage, technical and scientific processes and data, engineering models and simulation, medical records, corporate processes

Case studies, best practices and novel challenges Implementations; lessons learnt, preservation at scale; preservation of distributed and cloud based systems; cross-platform access services

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Training and education Building capacity in novel technologies and practices; curricula effectiveness; career management, etc.

Submission Deadlines: Papers & Posters: Full papers, short papers and posters due: April 15, 2016

Notification of acceptance: May 30, 2016 Camera ready: July 5, 2016

Workshops, Tutorials, & Panels: Workshop, tutorial and panel proposals due: April 15, 2016 Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2016

Final workshop, tutorial, panel descriptions: May 15, 2016

Source: https://ipr16.organizers-congress.org/frontend/index.php?folder_id=349

***

DC-2016: Metadata and Ubiquitous Access to Culture, Science and Digital Humanities (Deadlines: March 15; May 13; July 15) Copenhagen, Denmark, October 13-16, 2016

The Summit in Copenhagen launches DCMI's 3rd decade and provides a forum for looking forward to new challenges and backward at challenges met and challenges unresolved. Every year the DCMI community gathers for both its Annual Meeting and its International Conference on Dublin Core & Metadata Applications. The work agenda of the DCMI community is broad and inclusive of all aspects of innovation in metadata design, implementation, and best practices. While the work of the Initiative progresses throughout the year, the Conference and Annual Meeting provide the opportunity for DCMI "citizens" as well as newcomers, students, apprentices, and early career professionals to gather face-to-face to share knowledge and experience. The Summit in Copenhagen will provide the opportunity for public- and private-sector initiatives beyond DCMI that are doing significant metadata work to come together, to compare notes, and to cast a broader light into their particular metadata work silos. Through such a gathering of the metadata communities, DCMI advances its "first goal" of promoting metadata interoperability and harmonization. Technical Program Deadlines: Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports, & Posters:

Submission Deadline: May 13, 2016 Author Notification: July 22, 2016 Final Copy: September 2, 2016

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Professional Program Deadlines: Special & Panel Sessions, Workshops, and Tutorials: Proposal Deadline: March 15, 2016 Author Deadline: April 15, 2016 Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations: Submission Deadline: July 15, 2016 Author Notification: July 29, 2016

Source: http://dcevents.dublincore.org/IntConf/dc-2016

***

SAA Reviews Portal: Reviewers Needed (Submissions ongoing)

The Reviews Portal changes frequently, hosting new content in Archival Technologies and Resources (a list of websites useful for archivists working with digital archival materials) and Reviews (reviews of digital and digitized archival content, technologies, and related resources). You’re invited to contribute a review; contact Reviews Portal Coordinator Alexandra Orchard for more information.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS New England Archivists (NEA) Spring 2016 Meeting Portland, ME March 31-April 2, 2016 Source: http://www.newenglandarchivists.org/Spring-2016

***

Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Meeting (MARAC) Spring 2016 Pittsburgh, PA April 14-16, 2016 Source: http://www.marac.info/upcoming-conferences

***

Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Annual Meeting 2016 Milwaukee, WI April 27-30, 2016 Source: http://www.midwestarchives.org/2016-annual-meeting

***

Northwest Archives Conference Seattle, WA April 28-20, 2016 Source: http://northwestarchivistsinc.wildapricot.org/AnnualMeeting

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Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Summit 2016 Atlanta, GA May 4-6, 2016

Who should attend? The Summit is relevant to the interests and needs of data managers and curators, librarians who work with research data, and researchers and data scientists. A wide range of disciplines from the life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities will be represented. The Summit will bring together practitioners and researchers from academic institutions, data centers, funding agencies, and industry.

Why attend RDAP16? RDAP16 offers attendees the unique chance to interact with and learn from practitioners and researchers working in a variety of fields on research data management, access, and preservation issues. The Summit provides a forum for reaching across disciplines and institutions to work on common solutions to issues surrounding research data management. Participants will have multiple opportunities to expand professional networks and acquire practical knowledge and skills that can be applied to their own work and projects.

Program Chairs: Lisa Zilinski, Research Data Specialist, Carnegie Mellon University and Kate Dillon, Metadata Assistant, Stanford University

Source: http://www.asis.org/rdap/?_ga=1.229615512.560248398.1452974160

*** Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists (CIMA) 2016 Annual Meeting Ogden, UT May 11-14, 2016 Source: http://cimarchivists.org/conferences/

*** Society of Southwest Archivists (SSA) 2016 Annual Meeting Oklahoma City, OK May 18-21, 2016 Source: http://www.southwestarchivists.org/event-2019063

ANNOUNCEMENTS

American College of Surgeons Archives Catalog Now Online Dolores Barber, Assistant Archivist, American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Archives Catalog is now available online. Researchers have expressed enthusiasm about their newfound ability to access, not only collection descriptions, but also many of the actual photos, videos, publications, and sound recordings described in the Catalog.

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Planned further enhancements to the ACS Archives Catalog include: improved subject access, HTML versions of the descriptions (accessible to Internet search engines such as Google), and the ongoing addition of more digital objects.

***

Brooklyn Historical Society Receives NHPRC Grant Brooklyn Historical Society Grant amount: $106,186 Project staff: Zaheer Ali (Principal Investigator), Julie I. May (Supervisor), Brett Dion (Project Archivist)

In August 2015, Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) was awarded a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant to launch Voices of Generations: Investigating Brooklyn’s Cultural Identity, a project to digitize, process, catalogue, and make more accessible nearly 500 interviews that are part of ten oral history collections documenting the histories of Brooklyn’s diverse ethnic and cultural communities. Some of these interviews date back to 1973, with narrators born as early as 1880, and have been previously unavailable to researchers, educators, students, and the general public.

The ten collections provide a wealth of historical evidence about the lives of twentieth-century and twenty-first-century Brooklyn residents, and reveal how diverse communities sought to preserve vital social, political, religious, and even culinary traditions while embracing new identities as Brooklynites, New Yorkers, and Americans.

The chief goals of the project are to digitize and process the collections, catalogue them through item-level descriptions as well as collection-level finding aids, and post as many as possible online using the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS)—an innovative online application developed by the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky that provides time-correlated, word-level or index search capability for interviews online. In addition, BHS plans to use each collection as the basis for increased community and public engagement through outreach, social media, online publishing, and programming.

For more information, contact Zaheer Ali at [email protected].

***

Library of Congress Releases AVPreserve’s New BIBFRAME Report on Technical Metadata for Audiovisual Resources

AVPreserve is happy to announce the release of the results of our recent study (on behalf of the Library of Congress) of technical metadata for Audiovisual resources in the context of BIBFRAME.

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Audiovisual resources provide important use cases for testing the scope and breadth of BIBFRAME as it is being developed. First, simply the category of “audiovisual” represents a wide array of media types, from traditional celluloid film to digital video files; the complexity of each of these individual categories of media offers a rich test bed with which to examine BIBFRAME. Additionally, given that most (if not all) physical audiovisual resources will need to be migrated to the file-based domain for preservation and access purposes within the next few years (if they have not been already), it is urgent that a clear plan for technical, structural, and preservation description of both physical and digital resources be articulated for the library community. It is our hope that this report simplifies and provides clarity on a complex set of questions for a complex set of resources by offering concrete suggestions for the handling of audiovisual resources within BIBFRAME.

The study analyzes the relationship between BIBFRAME and the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata; investigates the applicability for structural and technical descriptions within the bibliographic context; looks at the technical information in MARC 21 and other metadata standards; and provides recommendations on which technical attributes of audiovisual material should be included in the BIBFRAME vocabulary.

The report, entitled “BIBFRAME AV Assessment: Technical, Structural, and Preservation Metadata” can be accessed at the Library of Congress website.

Comments, concerns, and discussion are encouraged via the BIBFRAME listserv (see the BIBFRAME contact page or directly to [email protected].

Source: https://www.avpreserve.com/news/library-of-congress-releases-avpreserves-new-bibframe-report-on-technical-metadata-for-audiovisual-resources/

***

Public Release: DPC Technology Watch Report: ‘Personal Digital Archiving’ Lorraine Murray, Communications Officer, Digital Preservation Coalition

The DPC, Gabriela Redwine and Charles Beagrie Ltd are delighted to announce the public release of the latest DPC Technology Watch Report ‘Personal Digital Archiving’, written by Gabriela Redwine, Digital Archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

This free peer-reviewed report is aimed at individuals who are concerned about how best to manage and preserve their own personal digital archives, as well as professionals who advise people on how to select and best preserve such digital content.

‘The term personal digital archiving refers to how individuals manage or keep track of their digital files, where they store them, and how these files are described and organised’, explained Gabriela Redwine. ‘People keep personal archives for many different reasons and the ubiquity of personal computing devices and the ease with which files can be duplicated often means that the same digital files can exist in multiple locations simultaneously.’

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The report provides an overview of the key issues related to personal digital archiving, arguing for the importance and urgency of preserving personal files, while also acknowledging the difficulty of managing digital files that include a combination of digitised and born-digital materials. There is a short introduction to the role of cultural heritage organisations, in the history of personal digital archiving, as well as current initiatives, which sets the stage for resources and recommendations for individuals who want to be proactive about saving their own digital materials.

The full announcement can be found on our website: http://bit.ly/1IRGijz

***

Exactly: A New Tool for Digital File Acquisitions

AVPreserve and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries are excited to announce the release of a new tool for born-digital acquisition and delivery.

Building on work originally begun by the Gates Archive, AVPreserve and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries developed Exactly to meet the growing need for archives to acquire born digital content directly from donors and to begin the activities of establishing provenance and fixity early in the process of acquisition. Read more about how the Nunn Center is using Exactly here.

Exactly is a simple and easy to use application for remotely and safely transferring any born-digital material from a sender to a recipient. Exactly utilizes the BagIt File Packaging Format (an Internet Engineering Task-Force standard, developed by the Library of Congress and the California Digital Library, with current support from George Washington University and the University of Maryland), supports FTP transfer, as well as standard network transfers, and integrates into desktop-based file sharing workflows such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Additionally, Exactly allows the recipient to create customized metadata templates for the sender to fill out before submission. Exactly can send email notifications with transfer data and manifests when files have been delivered to the archive.

Read more about Exactly’s features in the Users Guide and the Exactly Quickstart tutorial at our Exactly webpage. Downloads for the Exactly application are also available there (Windows executable, Mac OS Build, or Java Package).

Thanks, also, to StoryCorps and MIT staff for participating in beta testing and requirements documentation efforts.

Source: https://www.avpreserve.com/news/exactly-a-new-tool-for-digital-file-acquisitions/

***

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Interested in Contributing?

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January is National Mentoring Month

Celebrate National Mentoring Month by becoming a mentor or protégé! The SAA Mentoring Program brings together members with shared interests in various aspects of the archives profession in an effort to cultivate development throughout all career stages (from new to seasoned professional). Students, educators, working archivists, records managers, and retirees—every SAA member is eligible to participate as a mentor or protégé. To learn more or to apply, visit the SAA Mentoring Program page.